LIGHTNING AS A NEW RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCE SARAVANA KUMAR A/L ARPUTHASAMY UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA

Transcription

1 LIGHTNING AS A NEW RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCE SARAVANA KUMAR A/L ARPUTHASAMY UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA

2 LIGHTNING AS A NEW RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCE SARAVANA KUMAR A/L ARPUTHASAMY A project report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Master of Engineering (Electrical Power) Faculty of Electrical Engineering Universiti Teknologi Malaysia JANUARY 2015

3 III To my family who loves me, for their understandings and encouragements towards my study.

4 IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First and foremost, I would like thank god for the blessing and guidance that strength myself and inspire me to do this project. In preparing in this thesis, a lot of people have shared their knowledge and contribute their ideas to conduct this project successfully. I would like to express my sincere appreciation and gratitude to my supervisor Mr. Zulkarnain Bin Noorden for his guidance, advices and support to do this project. Apart from that, I also would like to express my appreciation to my family who has been very supportive to me all these years. Their encouragement enables me to concentrate and complete this project successfully. Finally I would like to expand my appreciation to all the people who has contributed and support me directly or indirectly during this project.

5 V ABSTRACT Lightning is a massive electrostatic discharge which occurs naturally. It consist of huge amount of voltage and current. It has been estimated that 40 to 50 lightning strike somewhere on the earth surface in a second. Annually around 1.4 billion of lightning strike occurs worldwide. Although the number of strike is very high lightning energy could not be convert to useful energy yet. Malaysia is one the country with tremendous lightning activity. As such, it better to initiate a study on lightning harnessing and promote it as new renewable energy sources that could be converted to useful electrical energy. Lightning can be a solution for the power crisis which is mostly depends on the non-renewable resources. However, there are some challenges in considering lightning as an alternative choice of energy. It is very hard to predict the location of lightning strike and harness the lightning energy because lightning strike occurs within few microseconds. In this research, the possible methods of converting lightning energy into useful electrical energy are studied and the best method that could practically applied will be proposed.

6 VI ABSTRAK Kilat adalah nyahcas elektrostatik besar-besaran yang berlaku secara semula jadi. Ia terdiri daripada voltan dan arus yang amat besar. Ia telah dianggarkan bahawa 40 hingga 50 kilat menyerang di sesuatu tempat di permukaan bumi dalam masa satu saat. Setiap tahun kira-kira 1.4 bilion kilat berlaku di seluruh dunia. Walaupun bilangan sambaran kilat adalah sangat tinggi tetapi kilat tidak boleh ditukar kepada tenaga yang berguna. Malaysia merupakan salah satu negara dengan aktiviti kilat besar. Oleh itu, lebih baik untuk memulakan kajian mengenai kilat pemanfaatan dan mempromosikannya sebagai sumber tenaga boleh diperbaharui baru yang boleh ditukar kepada tenaga elektrik yang berguna. Kilat boleh menjadi penyelesaian untuk krisis kuasa yang kebanyakannya bergantung kepada sumber-sumber yang tidak boleh diperbaharui. Walau bagaimanapun, terdapat beberapa cabaran dalam menimbangkan kilat sebagai pilihan tenaga alternatif. Ia amat sukar untuk meramalkan lokasi sambaran kilat dan memanfaatkan tenaga kilat kerana kilat berlaku dalam masa yang singkat iaitu beberapa mikrosaat. Dalam kajian ini, kaedah yang mungkin bagi menukarkan tenaga kilat menjadi tenaga elektrik yang berguna dikaji dan kaedah yang terbaik yang boleh digunakan akan dicadangkan.